The financing package for the Jubail cracker project planned by the local Tasnee Petrochemicals was signed on 2 June with a group of six banks. HSBC with its local affiliate SABB is acting as financial adviser (MEED 17:3:06).

The six mandated lead arrangers (MLAs) are Calyon with Banque Saudi Fransi, HSBC with SABB, Royal Bank of Scotland, Samba Financial Group, Societe Generale and West LB. The pricing on the 15-year deal ranges from 100-135 basis points over Libor.

The package consists of: a commercial tranche of $875 million, which may be scaled back if funding is provided by the Public Investment Fund; a Eur 610 million ($789.4 million) export credits tranche backed by Germany's Hermes, Italy's Sace, Export-Import Bank of Korea and Korea Export Insurance Corporation; and a loan from the Saudi Industrial Development Fund, expected to be worth $160 million.

Tasnee's 1.2 million-tonne-a-year (t/y) cracker is being built by a German/South Korean consortium of Linde and Samsung Engineering Company. Italy's Tecnimont is building two 450,000-t/y high-density and low-density polyethylene (HDPE/LDPE) plants at the complex (MEED 11:11:05).

MLA groups are due to be formally signed up imminently on two other petrochemical financings in the kingdom, for the Sahara Petrochemical Company's Al-Waha polypropylene and Saudi International Petrochemical Company phase 2 expansion schemes.